In this paper, a lately proposed Harris Hawks Optimizer (HHO) is used to solve the directional overcurrent relays (DOCRs) coordination problem. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first time HHO is being used in the DOCRs coordination problem. The main inspiration of HHO is the cooperative behavior and chasing style of Harris’ hawks from different directions, based on the dynamic nature of scenarios and escaping patterns of the prey. To test its performances in solving the DOCRs coordination problem, it is adopted in 3‐bus, 4‐bus, 8‐bus, and 9‐bus systems, which are formulated by three kinds of optimization models as linear programming (LP), nonlinear programming (NLP), and mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP), according to the nature of the design variables. Meanwhile, another lately proposed optimization algorithm named Jaya is also adopted to solve the same problem, and the results are compared with HHO in aspects of objective function value, convergence rate, robustness, and computation efficiency. The comparisons show that the robustness and consistency of HHO is relatively better than Jaya, while Jaya provides faster convergence rate with less CPU time and occasionally more competitive objective function value than HHO.